Of Ninja and Spells
by paradoxical-enigma
Summary: Child!Hidan is taken from Yugakure to a new town, where he meets lots of characters! Yeah, that's vague.


A/N: I can't say whether this is wholly AU, partially AU, or mostly canon, since I'm just writing this by ear. I also can't decide what pairing this will be yet. Basically, the world of this story will follow my whims, mmk.

It isn't like I really know how any of this happened, but I'll explain the events leading up to it anyway. I guess I'll start at the beginning. So, I went home from completing a B-ranked mission with my squad, right? It was a little more difficult than we were used to, but we finished it nonetheless. Anyway, I slid the screen door aside with a loud clatter and stepped inside my home. I walked into my kitchen, prepared to make myself a bowl of steaming hot rice and fish for dinner, when I saw a large figure standing in the second doorway as though he was either entering or leaving. Immediately, I drew my knife, prepared to slit the intruder's throat, and the guy turned and stepped into the light so I could see his face, which was scarred beyond belief. His expression was so calm. It was almost like he wanted only to frighten me. I didn't understand it, and I felt extremely insulted by the gesture.

I dashed towards him, prepared to cut his heart out, when I was stopped by some weird vine-like things that wrapped around my arms and held them in place with surprising- and frustrating- effectiveness. They crawled up my chest and wrapped around my throat. They hung limply for a few seconds before choking me, and I passed out after a while.

When I came to, my hands and legs were tied in strong chains (I knew they were strong because it wouldn't break despite my struggles) and I was riding in the back of some wagon. I managed to sit up and look around me, but I saw only the scenery fly by and the back of the driver's head. I wanted to bash in his brains with my chains, but they were too heavy to allow for that. Instead, I shouted a few strongly-worded complaints at him, and he turned to me for only a second to, I assumed, give me a glimpse of those scars on his face.

"So it's you? Huh… what the hell are you doing this for? You'll die in fire…" I swore in the most deadly, threatening voice I could muster.

He, the scarred man, didn't seem unsettled by my tone in the least, and that pissed me off. "Money." He answered gruffly. Only after I continued prompting him for several minutes did he expound on that. "You made yourself pretty well known. Your arrogant bragging has given every bounty hunter and slave trader in the vicinity knowledge of an immortal boy living in Yugakure. You're worth a killing."

After cussing him out some more and getting no response, I slumped back down in my seat and glared at things. I also thought about the various ways I could get revenge on the scarred man for interrupting me. Cutting, boiling, scalping… hell, I could dismember him, throw his separate body parts in vats of soup broth, and then feed them to passing rats. Those fantasies entertained me enough until the scarred man stopped the wagon and pulled me out of it by the chains.

I drilled daggers through his skull and brain with my eyes, but he was unresponsive, and I reluctantly ended up walking for about a mile into a town I'd never seen before while wearing those ridiculously heavy chains. We walked into a large mansion complete with several stupidly huge gardens (what kind of freak needs so much plant life in front of his damn [i]house[/i]?), and I fell asleep almost the instant I could sit down. I heard the scarred man talking with another guy for a few seconds first, however, but I didn't care. I had a couple of brief dreams about slaughtering him, and when I woke up, I immediately tried to make those realities, but I was unfortunately stopped again.

A thick rope was twisted around each of my fingers and into the webbing between each pair of fingers. It [i]really[/i] hurt. The rope was red and inscribed with some sort of black writing I couldn't understand. For some reason, whenever I tried to break it, a wave of tiredness washed over me and I wasn't able to continue. It was so damn annoying. The same shitty twine was around my ankles, and I couldn't stomp anyone to death with those things on.

This other old guy with a long grey beard but no hair on his head grabbed me and we took a walk into the town. He was distracted with buying food or drugs or something- it wasn't like I paid attention- when I saw [i]her[/i]. Well, to be fair, she saw me first. She had really long, fluffy blonde hair that flowed to the curve in her lower back and the brightest blue eyes I've ever seen. Her dress was puffy and frilly and pink, so I assumed she was some rich girl. She placed a finger to her lips and winked and I shrugged, unsure what to think of the motion. While the old guy was distracted, she made a few handsigns that looked similar to the complicated ones my team leader always made, and then she chopped through the rope between my hands like it was paper.

The rope made a small shriek like it was a living thing that'd just been slaughtered (I'd heard similar screams from my enemies many times before) before it burned to ash and fell at my feet. The pretty girl sliced through the ropes around both of my ankles as once just as that weird old guy turned and started yelling himself. It was really irritating, and I stopped with the intent to kill him before the girl grabbed my hand and pulled me in the opposite direction. On a whim, I decided to follow her, and although running away was tiring and felt cowardly, it was exhilarating to be able to move properly again.

I found out later that it'd been for the best to flee, since some bastard had stolen all of my weapons. The pretty girl and I stopped running only after we'd thrown off our pursuer near a ravine in the forest.

"Yeah… thanks, I guess." I muttered, scratching my cheek, and gave her a small smile. "So, who are you, anyway?"

"My name's Deidara. You didn't look too happy with that slave-trader, and I recognized the binding spell from my lessons with grandma, so I thought you could've used some help, hmm?" She smiled brightly at me, and her good mood was catching.

"Oh, okay. Call me Hidan, all right?" I felt like I needed to say something to preserve my masculinity; men can't just go around getting saved by little girls all the time! Anyway, I continued, "It isn't like I'm weak or anything. Those assholes just caught me by surprise, okay? Even if you hadn't come along, I'd have been fine. I don't need the help of some little girl to get by."

Deidara giggled and I stared at her like she was crazy, wondering what the hell was so funny.

"I'm a boy, silly."

And that's how I ended up hiding out in the forest with a cross-dressing mage.

A/ N : And there's some divergences from canon ; the existence of mages and spells that aren't jutsu. Yep, Hidan's a ninja and Deidara's a spell casting mage. Oh, and Deidara's OOCness, but he and Hidan are children and this is mostly AU, so that's how I justify it. B)

The next chapter, if I write one, will be in 3rd person.


End file.
